As we know, Ubuntu 11.04 is EOL and no software update lands on the PPAs or official repos.

That said, I'm looking for Firefox 17, or unofficial Firefox 17 builds specifically for Ubuntu 11.04... you know, something like waterfox/palemoon, but for Linux which will continue getting updates and which can read the existing Firefox 16.x profile so that I don't have to set it all up again.

Just out of curiosity, why are you still using Ubuntu 11.04 when you know its EOL? Its not getting updates anymore and probably isn't entirely secure. Its as bad as using Windows 2000 Professional as your primary OS. (Okay, maybe not quite that bad... but close.)

If you insist on using this particular version of Ubuntu, which no one is likely to build newer stable versions of Firefox for, you could probably switch to the Debian builds of Firefox for Squeeze. My instructions below will probably work, but I didn't test it and don't make any guarantees.

(Note that Iceweasel is Debian's version of Firefox. Mozilla won't let Debian apply any custom patches or make minor modifications to Firefox make it work for all architectures they support while still using Mozilla's branding. You can read all about it here if you are interested. For all intents and purposes Iceweasel is Firefox.)

Just out of curiosity, why are you still using Ubuntu 11.04 when you know its EOL? Its not getting updates anymore and probably isn't entirely secure. Its as bad as using Windows 2000 Professional as your primary OS. (Okay, maybe not quite that bad... but close.)

If you insist on using this particular version of Ubuntu, which no one is likely to build newer stable versions of Firefox for, you could probably switch to the Debian builds of Firefox for Squeeze. My instructions below will probably work, but I didn't test it and don't make any guarantees.

(Note that Iceweasel is Debian's version of Firefox. Mozilla won't let Debian apply any custom patches or make minor modifications to Firefox make it work for all architectures they support while still using Mozilla's branding. You can read all about it here if you are interested. For all intents and purposes Iceweasel is Firefox.)

Thanks for the detailed instructions as always mate, I'll keep 'em handy. Forthe moment though, I've found what I was looking for. Actually not exactly what I wanted, but I'm happy - I found a PPA for the trunk builds of Firefox that're available for Natty as well and I'm currently on the v19.01 of it. I researched a bit before going trunk and found it was pretty stable. In actual use too, as of now, it's very stable for a Nightly and all the extensions I use work - so no complaints there

As to why I'm sticking to 11.04, well, I'm a huge customization freak and I'm sticking around mostly for Gnome 2. Sure, I could move to a newer distro and install Gnome 2x, but then I'd have to reconfigure *everything* from scratch, which I don't really have the time for

I'm not too worried about security patches because I have iptables set up and also am behind a hardered router.

If you really want to keep the GNOME 2 experience, I recommend that you upgrade to Debian Wheezy with the MATE desktop environment. Unless you are talking about reinstalling packages, which there is no way around, you can simply keep your home directory when upgrading to keep your customized settings. (Alternatively you could use Ubuntu or Mint with MATE, but I prefer Debian.)

If you really want to keep the GNOME 2 experience, I recommend that you upgrade to Debian Wheezy with the MATE desktop environment. Unless you are talking about reinstalling packages, which there is no way around, you can simply keep your home directory when upgrading to keep your customized settings. (Alternatively you could use Ubuntu or Mint with MATE, but I prefer Debian.)

Depending on how risky you want to be, you could do one of a few things. (I recommend backing up your data no matter which you choose.)

1. Backup your data and do a clean install of your new operating system of choice. (I recommend Debian Wheezy with MATE.) This option is the least risky but the most work.

2. Upgrade Ubuntu from 11.04 to 12.04 (or 12.10 if you wish). I'm not sure if this is a supported upgrade path, but you could always choose the unsafe method of replacing every reference to natty in /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d with precise (or quantal). This method is mostly theoretically safe and less work than doing a reinstall (if everything works).

3. Upgrade directly from Ubuntu 11.04 to Debian Wheezy with MATE. This is definitely not a supported upgrade path, but should theoretically work. Backup and remove all extra repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list.d, import the Debian Wheezy Automatic Archive Signing Key (ASC) and MATE ASC, and backup and replace your /etc/apt/sources.list with the one below. This method is the most risky but definitely the least work (if everything works).